James F. Stone

Barefoot in the Park -- Master of Broadway comedy Neil Simon adapted his hit play about a conservative young lawyer and his off-the-wall bride for this warm film classic. Robert Redford is Mister Straight. Jane Fonda is his new wife, who dedicates her life to the pursuit of fun. As the ecstasy of the honeymoon gives way to the reality of setting up housekeeping in a five-flight walk-up, the harmony of marriage turns to comical discord. The mother-in-law complains meekly. The middle-aged lothario upstairs flirts. Joy turns to anguish. There is little doubt that the young people will kiss and make up by the end of the picture, just as there's little doubt that the mother and the neighbor will find each other. Fonda and Redford make a wonderfully successful comedy team.

When young Christy Mathewson Cooper secures a job as a batboy with a team called the Bisons, he amazes players and management by delivering tips on how to win games. The big secret is that Christy is merely the mouthpiece for his father, former big-league ballplayer Larry Cooper, whose run of bad luck has forced him to hawk peanuts at the ballpark. Impressed by Christy's apparent expertise, the Bisons' owner, always on the lookout for a new publicity gimmick, promptly appoints the pint-sized Christy as manager of the team.

Under the spell of a wandering charlatan named Starbuck, a lonely ranch girl blossoms into full womanhood. Katharine Hepburn garnered an Oscar nomination as the "believably plain yet magnetically beautiful" tomboy rancher, with Burt Lancaster brilliantly cast in the role of the smooth-talking con man who sells his rainmaking "powers" to unsuspecting, drought-ridden Western towns. Playwright N. Richard Nash meticulously enlarges his hit Broadway play to the big screen without losing any of the earthy, gut-wrenching emotions or the sheer, hilarious fun. The result is a genuinely appealing and beautifully executed romance. A must-see for Hepburn fans!

The feisty, domineering cattle baron Matt Devereaux (Spencer Tracy) rules his vast empire with a ruthless hand. Because Matt's greatest love is for his Indian wife, Princess (Katy Jurado) and their son Joe (Robert Wagner), Matt's three sons from a previous marriage deeply resent them. After Joe agrees to go to jail for a crime his father commits, he returns three years later to a different world; his father has died and his vengeful brothers control the land.